Demonetisation-hit farmer family in the lurch

Family members of tenant farmer Ranganatham Nukaraju, who ended his life a month ago, at Fakruddinpalem village in East Godavari district.

The prevailing agrarian crisis, coupled with the demonetisation of high denomination notes, forced 48-year-old tenant farmer Ranganatham Nukaraju to allegedly end his life a month ago.

Now, his four-member debt-ridden family is left with no other option but to take up cultivation to eke out a livelihood. A native of the verdant Fakruddinpalem village, Nukaraju cultivated vegetables in three acres of land on tenancy. In November last, he was hopeful of clearing at least some of his debts, as the yield was quite encouraging.

“The vegetable prices fell from ₹ 24 a kg to ₹ 4 a kg overnight. We have come to know that it was due to the cancellation of currency notes,” recalled Nukaraju’s wife, Manikyam, 43, weeping inconsolably. On the night of December 26, Nukaraju allegedly consumed pesticide in his farm field and was spotted by his fellow farmers. He was admitted to hospital immediately, where he battled for life for one day.

“Once we owned 36 cents of cultivable land here. In the absence of returns from agriculture, we sold it off in bits and pieces,” she said.

The couple married off their daughter a few months ago, while their graduate son, Rajesh, is in job search. Fighting back their agony, Nukaraju’s aged parents searched for a source of livelihood and zeroed in on paddy cultivation. “We have come to know about the debts only after his death. The private loans are amounted to ₹ 5 lakh and we did not own any property except this thatched house,” Ms. Manikyam said. “My only wish is that my son should get a decent job at the earliest. I don’t want to allow him into cultivation,” she says firmly.

A four-member team from Rythu Swarajya Vedika and Andhra Pradesh Koulu Rythula Sangham visited this village on Friday, a month after Nukaraju’s death. “In the last two and a half years, 1,548 peasants from the State were forced to end their lives, and most of them are tenant farmers. East Godavari district accounted for 60 farm suicides during the period,” pointed out Vissa Kiran Kumar, State committee member of the vedika, observing that the tenant farmers were leading vulnerable lives all over the State. “There is no distribution of loan eligibility cards and the disbursal of loans is bare minimal. The government should swing into action to arrest the suicides,” he said.